How to Grow as an Encourager

This past Sunday, I wrapped up my sermon by expounding upon the end of Hebrews 10:25 in which we are called to encourage “one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near,” (ESV). In other words, the day of Jesus’ return is drawing ever nearer so let’s stop pushing each other down and start pulling each other up. Let us be known as encouragers instead of critics. Maybe you’ve realized that you tend towards negativity and criticism. Maybe you want to grow in your capacity and ability to encourage but you’re not sure where to start. Below are four practical considerations and methods for growing in encouragement:

1. Filter Everything You Say Through the Lens of God’s Word - I am prone to sarcasm and I can intentionally or unintentionally use my mouth to hurt others. I’ve come a long way from how I used to talk in high school and college but the Lord is still maturing me in choosing my words carefully. Ephesians 4:29 has been a guiding light for me over the past 14 years, “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear,” (ESV). Paul provides a convicting and helpful filter that you need to run your words through before they exit out of your mouth. According to this filter, you should never say anything that will tear someone down instead of build them up. This means that you cannot just say whatever you are thinking or hide behind the excuse that you are a “straight shooter who tells it like it is.” This means that you will need to hold some jokes in that would be funny. This means that you need to consider how to phrase a tough suggestion or word of advice that a family member or friend needs to hear. This filter will help you to avoid saying the wrong thing at the wrong time and it will also keep you from saying the right thing at the wrong time. Notice that Paul says our words must fit the occasion. The setting and timing of our words matter just as much as the content of our words. I guarantee that this God-given filter will save you and others from a lot of pain and heartache.

2. Celebrate the Wins of Others and Speak Hope Into Their Failures - The Lord has been teaching me that an important sign of maturity is the ability to be genuinely excited for the wins of others. It’s so easy to be envious when life is going well for someone else. It’s easy to be threatened when someone in your sphere of influence accomplishes an impressive goal. On the other hand, it’s godly to be pleased that the Lord is blessing someone that you care about with success. It’s Christlike to be happy when someone else accomplishes a worthwhile task. Instead of sulking on the sidelines of someone’s success, get into the game and offer them your heartfelt congratulations. Also, do not revel in the failures and losses of others. Their failures do not equal your own success. Enter into their pain to offer them the hope of the gospel and the comfort of Christ.

3. Let Others Know That You are Praying for Them - At Harvest, we always say to pray for someone right now when a need is expressed instead of just saying that you’ll do it later and end up forgetting. In the same vein, reach out to that individual throughout the week to let them know that you are continually lifting up their requests to the Lord. Set reminders on your phone to intercede on their behalf before the throne of grace and to contact them via text or a phone call with a message of how you are specifically praying for them. You will make someone’s day by simply letting them know that you took the time to approach the Lord on their behalf. Paul encourages us at the end of Ephesians to be “Praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints,” (6:18 ESV). Be diligent in praying for others just as much as you pray for yourself.

4. Send Handwritten Notes and Letters - As someone with atrocious handwriting that never developed in appearance since 4th grade, this suggestion pains me. My handwriting is embarrassingly bad but I still try to send out notes to people on a weekly basis because this old fashioned discipline communicates care and intentionality. Paul typically dictated his epistles to someone else who put pen to paper but he was very emphatic about pointing out whenever he actually wrote on the page with his own hand (Galatians 6:11 & 2 Thessalonians 3:17). He did this to draw his readers’ attention to his own care for their souls and to certain truths that they could not afford to ignore. FaceTime, text messaging, and phone calls are helpful tools but cannot replace the blessing and impact of receiving a handwritten letter. Make a list of people in your life that would benefit from notes of encouragement and be diligent in writing at least one or two a month. Guys reading this blog post: writing letters and notes is not a feminine or girly activity. This is a godly activity that will bless and benefit others guys in your life that desperately need to be lifted up and encouraged.

Resurrection Sunday – April 9th

Prayer: Ask the Lord to bless your time in the Word and prepare your heart to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus.

Read: Matthew 28:1-15 and Psalm 16:8-11

The resurrection of Jesus is the most important yet controversial event in human history. Many would like to ignore the resurrection and not give it a moment’s thought. Others try to explain it away with “scientific” and “logical” defenses that prove to be more unbelievable than the claim that the Son of God rose from the dead. There is the “Swoon Theory” which imagines that Jesus passed out on the cross, was thought to be dead, and was buried alive in the tomb belonging to Joseph of Arimathea. Jesus then woke up in the tomb, somehow rolled the 1-2-ton stone away by himself, and proceeded to make his cameo appearances around town. There is the “Substitution Theory” which suggests that Jesus either had a twin brother or a doppelgänger who impersonated Him on the cross. Sounds like the lame plot twist in a soap opera episode, doesn’t it?

A popular explanation to poke holes in the resurrection is the claim that Jesus’ followers must have conspired together to take part in grave robbery. This theory isn’t new by any means as its origin is found in the passage from Matthew that you just read. To save face, the religious leaders bribed the guards who watched over the tomb to spread the lie that Jesus’ disciples stole the body away while they were sleeping on the job (Matthew 28:11-15). This is ridiculous for a number of reasons. First and foremost, it’s important to remember that almost all of the disciples were tortured and martyred for their faith in the resurrected and living Jesus. Why would these men choose to suffer and die for a lie that they willingly fabricated?

I could list other conspiracy theories regarding the resurrection but none of them add up or hold any water. All of these theories are excuses that serve as distractions from truly coming to terms with the empty tomb. It is a historical reality that Jesus lived, was crucified, and His body cannot be found. We all must come to grips with this reality and choose to either embrace the resurrection or reject it. To ignore it or live in light of it. To hate it or celebrate it every single second of every single day. The resurrection of Jesus Christ changes everything. If you believe in it and submit to the risen Lord, the resurrection changes your past, your present, and your future. Because of the resurrection, you can have new and abundant life that lasts forever (Romans 6:4-11). Jesus’ resurrection paved the way for your future resurrection when you will receive a new and glorified body (1 Corinthians 15:12-34 and 1 John 3:1-3). When life is hard and doubts arise, take heart and know that your Redeemer lives! Jesus is alive and ruling on the throne of the universe at this very second and forevermore. Let the lyrics of Bill Gaither’s famous hymn, Because He Lives, ring in our hearts and minds: “An empty tomb is there to prove my Savior lives and because He lives, I can face tomorrow. Because He lives, all fear is gone. Because I know He holds the future and life is worth the living just because He lives.” [1]

Reflection Questions:

• Why is it logical and reasonable to believe that Jesus rose from the dead?

•  How does His resurrection impact/change your past, present, and future?

• How has the Lord ministered to your soul over this past week of reading and studying His Word? What are some of your big takeaways?

[1]Bill Gaither, Because He Lives, Heartwarming Records.

Saturday – April 8th

Read: Matthew 27:62-66 and Isaiah 53:8-12

Here in Matthew 27:62-66, we see an interesting exchange between the Pharisees, the chief priests, and Pontius Pilate. As Jesus is in the tomb, they are fearful His disciples will steal the body and “fake” His resurrection. They ask Pilate for “a guard” which was around sixteen Roman soldiers to seal the tomb and keep watch. I find this interesting and ironic all on its own, since the Pharisees actually believed in a bodily resurrection (Acts 23:8). As interesting as that may be, the main point that stands out has to be the contrast between how the Jews revered Pilate and degraded Jesus. They address Pilate as “Sir” whereas Jesus, the one who willingly laid down His life and suffered a horrible death to save undeserving sinners, they refer to as a fraudulent imposter. Here are some questions that immediately come to mind: how could the religious leaders of God’s people get things so wrong?  -AND- how do we get it right?  We will definitely revisit these questions, but let’s look at our second scripture reading before we do.  

Isaiah 53:8-12 is a known prophecy about the Messiah that was written 700 years before Jesus walked the earth. In this passage, God makes it very clear that everything is happening as it was foretold - the Messiah had to die and make atonement for our sins. He even gives us specific details regarding the Messiah, so we don’t get it wrong. “They made His (Jesus) grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death,” (53:9). Jesus was crucified between two thieves who were wicked, and yet He was buried in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent rich man of that day. In verses 10-12, we are told that it was the Lord’s will that Jesus would be an offering for the guilt of our sin and suffer the death of a transgressor - in place of us - so that we would be counted righteous before God. These details were recorded centuries before they took place, and are so specific that they cannot be written off as mere circumstance or conjecture. 

In light of how God painted such a clear picture of the Messiah, how could the religious leaders get it wrong? -AND- of equal importance, how can we avoid that mistake? First, they ignored God’s Word, and we must NEVER ignore God’s Word. Since the religious leaders devoted their lives to the study of scripture, we cannot conclude that they were unfamiliar with it. The logical explanation is they ignored what it said, and in doing so tried to keep Jesus in His grave. As for those of us who are born again believers in Jesus Christ, we should always seek to study, understand, and apply God’s word. We can avoid the mistake of the religious leaders in our own lives by choosing to NOT ignore what God’s Word says. In other words, we must listen and be obedient to it.  

Prayer: Pray and ask God to show you an area of your life where you may be “trying to keep Jesus in the tomb” and willfully ignoring God’s Word. Confess to the Lord where you are struggling, and ask for prayer from a friend.

Reflection Questions:

• Is there anyone or anything in your life you are placing above Jesus?

• What do you think led the religious rulers to a place where their priorities were so misaligned? 

Good Friday – April 7th

Prayer: Ask the Lord for eyes to see and ears to hear wonderful things from His Word.  

Read: Matthew 27:1-61, Psalm 22, and Isaiah 52:13-53:7

Sometimes people with ill-formed or uninformed spiritual notions say, “if only God would show up, then I would believe in him.” In the mid-1990s, the song One of Us cynically asked “What if God was one of us?” The questions posed by the song were left to the listener to answer philosophically. But today’s passage answers the questions definitively. On this day, we see God in the hands of angry sinners. It was a day of treachery (27:1-10) and false accusations (27:11-18). It was a day of murder (27:26-31) and envious and haughty mockery (27:27-31, 37-44). It was a day when rebellious voices called for the release of a murderer instead of their Messiah (27:15-26). What happened to Jesus this day is exactly how sinful people answer the question, what “would you want to see, if seeing [God] meant that you would have to believe”[1] in Jesus? The answer is, “we don’t want to see Jesus!” Sinners so desperately want to believe in themselves and anything other than Jesus Christ that they were (and still are) eager to put Him to death in their hearts and minds. And when given the opportunity to kill Him, they subjected Him to an unspeakably cruel and brutal death on the cross.

What they saw didn’t fit the Messiah of their imaginations.They wanted a warrior ruler and king. Yet during His earthly ministry there was nothing majestic about Jesus – how could such a poor man – from Galilee of all places – be the Messiah (Isaiah 53:1-3)? They did not see the kind of messiah they wanted, and so they rejected Him. They saw a man they thought deserved the mockery and brutal beatings, because He claimed to be the Son of God. In their minds, He deserved death for such blasphemy (Isaiah 53:4b; Matthew 27:39-43). And it was in the throes of death that Jesus “cried out with a loud voice saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” By reciting the first line of Psalm 22, a messianic psalm, Jesus called the past into the present – in other words, He called the people to recite the psalm and see the Word of God accomplished. Yes, all the mockery (Psalm 22:7-8) and distress – even the very means of death – were being fulfilled before their eyes (Psalm 22:14-18). Had they recited the psalm perhaps their eyes would have opened wide as they sang about His pierced hands and feet and realized the Roman soldiers had cast lots for His clothing. And perhaps they would have cried out, “we are killing the Messiah!”

But they did not see these things and they did not cry out. It was Jesus who cried out with a loud voice as He yielded His spirit. This was no cry of defeat; it was a shout of victory over death. Like an athlete who, in the final seconds or remaining yards of a grueling contest, summons from the depths of his being a final push to seize victory with loud exclamation, Jesus plunged into death victorious. To His followers, however, this looked nothing like victory. Instead, it appeared all their hopes and longings for Messiah had been crushed, and they were despondent and confused. It appeared as though in just a week’s time everything had spun out of control and Jesus was powerless to stop the events that led to His death.

But He was in control of every single thing that happened. It is truly mysterious that God used sinful people acting from sinful motives to reject and kill the Son of God. It is truly mysterious that God in fact became one of us to conquer death by dying. The people that put Jesus to death were so intent on “doing the work of God” to kill “a blasphemer,” that they completely missed the work God was doing through Jesus’ death. We tend to see Jesus’ victory over sin and death occurring when He rose from the dead. But His victory was complete when He exclaimed, “It is finished!” (John 19:13). And we see His victory was immediate because the temple curtain was torn from top to bottom, the earth shook, and saints were raised from the dead (Matthew 27:50-53). The Roman soldiers who saw just some of these things – this was unlike any crucifixion they had ever carried out – exclaimed in awe that Jesus was, truly, the Son of God! Having finished all His work, Jesus rested on the Sabbath. His disciples and friends would see Him on the third day, and the victory celebration would commence.

Reflection Questions:

• Do you agree that believing in Jesus is necessary to see God?

• In Luke 9:23, Jesus said“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” Does this statement cause you to see yourself differently? Does it cause you to see Jesus differently?

[1]One of Us, Eric Bazilian, ©Warner Chappell Music, Inc.